The World As We Know It
by Atheniandream
Summary: 'The world as we know it runs into a divide.' Post-5.16
_Notes:_

 _I did something weird. Thought I would try something different._

 _I wrote this, a Post-5.16 Fic and ' **The New World Order'** side by side._

 _One is what happens, and one is an alternative to what happens._

 _I'm going to try and release chapters at the same time._

 _Feed the kitty if you like!_

 _Atheniandream__

* * *

 **The World As We know It.**

By Atheniandream

* * *

The world as we know it runs into a divide.

On one side,

 _The Innocent._

On the other side, The Guilty.

Mike Ross and Harvey Specter bridge the two.

One dons Orange,

And the other, Royal Blue.

* * *

His shoulders have set into the kind of shape that's starting to build the pressure in his neck.

He can't even be bothered to look forward for the remainder of the journey; the steadily waning light beginning to fold under the pressure of the quick seeping dark.

The past few months, hell, the past two years have been a burden, in some ways.

 _Mike Ross seemed like the only part of it that he could actually deal with._

Even when the kid had strung them all up unintentionally, and he'd had to rally just to keep the ship aligned, it was bearable. It had been hard, a constant struggle, tooth and nail above his previous battles, sure.

But throughout it all, Mike Ross had been there,

Present,

By his side.

The best of allies,

And what he could now acknowledge as _the best of friends._

And From this point, from here on out,

The world as he knows it is about to take a nose-dive.

 _Mike_ made a choice.

A choice to save them all.

And now he feels like he's been left alone in a raging sea of uncertainty.

* * *

He knocks his hand lazily against the door, stifling his own self-judgement in exchange of hearing the familiar sound of the lock turning.

He frowns, his eyebrows knitting together at the strange silence.

 _She's always here when he calls._

Admittedly the light hadn't been on.

But he assumed.

 _Unless…_

He wonders if she is with Rachel. Being the doting friend that she prides herself in being.

He scuffs his foot against the matt, before summoning up the courage to knock again.

Still nothing.

 _Not a sound._

He releases a puff of air, a held frustration at being outside an apartment that is otherwise unoccupied, before he turns swiftly on his heel.

He's taken aback when the door opens soon after he's almost given up, and the two hazel browns of a rather different looking Donna Paulsen stare widely back at him.

"Harvey…" She says, a cagey expression on her noticeably flushed face as she examines him half way down the hall.

"Hey. _Can I come in_?" He asks, frowning slightly at the sight of her as he lingers in the doorway.

"No, Harvey. I can't talk right now." She mouthes, her voice pinching under it's usual volume.

His frown deepens in reaction, his eyes squaring on her as he slowly reads her expression.

The first thing that he notices is her hair. It looks wild, fluffy and unlike it's usually perfect flame like heldness. She is flushed, from her face all the way down her chest against the freckles that he remembers run even further down past the robe she's wearing. It offsets the slightly wired look in her eye, and instantly pushes at his resolve.

"You're busy…" He says, the words laying an almost question with a vague weight into the air around them.

If he were in any other kind of mood he might have enquired, with a humour about himself perhaps.

Suddenly the idea of her being _otherwise engaged_ isn't so funny any more.

"Yes, I a-" She fumbles.

" **Donna**?" They both straighten at the booming sound that floods out into the hall. Her eyes flick to his, reacting to the third voice as the muscles on his back tense.

"I should go." He says briskly, feeling the need to clear his throat at the sudden stream of excuses. " _Sorry for the_ …" He indicates, pointing vaguely over her shoulder as he turns.

 _He doesn't want to meet the guy._

 _What she does in her own time…_

* * *

Harvey Specter is lonely.

In all honesty he's never felt so alone.

He loves his Brother. His little Brother will always be important to him. He will always be precious, but Harvey has always struggled with him. They had sparred. Picked sides. Fought. Caught between two sides of a coin as far as their Mother and Father were concerned.

He doesn't always understand Marcus, and sometimes Marcus just wants to push him.

But he loves him.

And yet Mike…

Mike came from a different home. A different background and with a completely different approach to life.

And yet his leaving,

His bold sacrifice has left a chasm worth of loneliness in his wake.

* * *

It worries Donna.

This expanse of feeling that Harvey has started to build around himself.

She's never seem him exume such a torrent of emotion.

It occupies her in a way she accepted long ago, but finds with every passing moment harder and harder to deal with.

Mitchell sees it for the first time.

How it changes her.

He is quiet in his objections.

In a way, it only makes things worse.

* * *

The knock at the door barely rouses him, as he groans in an effort to rise from the perfect indent he has so carefully crafted over the past few hours of self-competed drinking.

He had lingered at a bar, before the need to stumble imperfectly into his pristine apartment had beckoned like a wanton woman.

Except without the woman. Suddenly the idea of that was out of the question.

His muscles are a little looser now, as he wanders vaguely to the door.

He doesn't want to open it, a sudden fear drawing at him that the person he'd most like to be behind it would be the least likely candidate. _At least for another seven hundred days at least…_

He was going to miss those late-night run-ins. Those times that he'd grumbled and let the kid in. Where he'd insisted that he'd leave, and be professional, and stop encroaching on his private time and the kid had still ended up staying anyway. The situation had morphed gradually, as the kid had pressed firmer and firmer into his life, to the point where suddenly he was offering him an invitation, to stay, even. To take the time. To just..hang out for a second.

As he opens the door, he straightens immediately, taking in the still messy hair but less severe looking gaze of the surprise intruder.

"Donna? What are you-"

Before he's able to even look straight, she bounds past him, in slacks and a lumpy sweater that she somehow wears with an elegance.

" **How many times do I have to tell you NOT to come to my apartment**?"

Her voice streams past him in all it's glorious colours, his eyes narrowing in a weak attempt to follow her, before slamming the door roughly in her wake.

"Donna," He begins.

"No, Harvey." She interrupts, her hair whipping around as she faces him. "How many times do you think you can just apologise for not listening to me in favour of getting what you want?"

"Donna..I" He falls over the words, examining the way her hands slide onto her hips with an entitlement. "...it's been a really shitty week," he groans.

"I understand that, Harvey, and I'm upset as much as you," She reams off. "But you can't just turn up at my door anymor-"

"Why not?" He fires at her, his voice booming.

It knocks them both for six.

He's not even sure why he said it. But suddenly the impulse had coursed through him and all at once he needed to know the reason until the words coming out of his mouth had encouraged her to look at him like he was turning blue.

" _Why not_?" She repeats. "Harvey…" She sighs, the audacity of his words ripping through her. "I have a boyfriend!"

"Donna," He fumbles.

" _ **A boyfriend**_ , Harvey."

"I know that, Donna. I just...I needed to…"

"To what, Harvey?" She jumps once more over his slow reply. "Do you think that you're the only one who's hurting right now? Who's devastated about Mike?"

"Why do you think I came to you?" He fired at her.

"Do you not think that maybe _I_ need somebody to comfort _**me**_?"

It hits his face like a ton of dry, wretch invoking brick.

 _She's right. But awareness of the fact doesn't stop it from stinging a little deeper._

"Oh come on, you weren't seeking comfort Donna, you were…fucking a guy!" He throws at her, his face twitching in distaste.

"He's my boyfriend, Harvey! That's what we do! Don't pretend that you haven't vented into some pretty brunette you encouraged out of some bar!"

"Donna,"

"No, Harvey. This has to stop. You need to promise me that you won't just turn up, and-"

"I was lonely, _**OKAY**_?!" He shouts, his voice rippling out into the chasm of apartment.

There it is again.

That emotion.

Flooding out of him like the mouth of a river.

He gathers himself, his lips mashing together as he rubs his forehead just to will the pressure out of his eyes.

One look from her is all it takes for the need to retreat to set in. He wanders to his glass, resting on the coffee table with enough liquid in it to hopefully and finally drown it all out.

He picks the glass up, the ever present coolness of the glass against his warm hand as he downs the half a shot.

"Harvey," He hears her voice behind him, quiet and concentrated.

He sighs, shaking his head minutely at the lingering presence that he could sooner do without.

He turns when he feels a hand on his shoulder, his eyes finding hers as they examine him for a second.

When her hands raise, her arms following, he immediately swallows; the impulse to take a step back flipping in his mind.

"Donna," He warns, suddenly aware of her shorter than usual height.

"Shut up." She commands gently, her arms slowly wrapping around him.

He tenses, only to feel her hair against his cheek and her chin on his shoulder as her arms wrap around them. Her hair tickles his five o'clock shadow, the smell warm and inviting and somehow oddly new. For a moment, he squeezes his eyes shut, the warmth of her own body heat against him soothing that ache in his bones, that longing that seemed a mile away. When her hold on him tightens a fraction he sighs heavily, his mind firing distant memories at him.

Of bare skin. And arms around him. Of red hair splayed like a halo and lots and lots of freckles.

Harvey Specter doesn't hug people.

He probably hugged Mike and Scottie the most out of everybody in his life. His Dad...when he was alive, maybe. Maybe even Louis, now, due to his enormous need for physical contact.

He wasn't socially tactile, and had never been. And it had suited his hardened persona to a tee.

And Donna had never pushed it.

But Harvey Specter was a different man, now.

 _Mike Ross had changed that in spades and more..._

The feeling of her chest gently rising against his flooded his mind for a moment, pushing out the old and welcoming the new. His limp hands slid carefully against her lower back.

"Mike will be okay, Harvey." She whispers.

"You don't know that." He says, his voice splintering.

"We have to hope." She mumbles.

When she pulls away to look at him, he feel his hands press into her sweater-drenched hips.

"We're going to be okay, Harvey." She tells him, her eyes looking to his.

He can't help it. All of a sudden, the need to press his lips against hers is at the forefront of his mind. He isn't even able to register the action as his hand pulls back and in between them, sliding into her hair and around the side of her head as his own angles itself, his lips nudging at hers with a smooth brush and a press. Before she even has a chance to react, her mouth slightly open, his tongue sliding against the underside of her top lip, she gasps against him, reactively, immersed in the hot and wetness of his approaching kiss.

When she disconnects, abruptly so, his eyes snap open, as if he hadn't realised they'd been closed, only to feel the cold water-splash of a red feeling sting across his face as her hand expertly swipes across his left cheekbone.

She steps back, as if hot water has poured between them.

He feels his jaw click with a snapping sound, as his face is suddenly lit on fire with the feeling.

When he turns, all he sees are her eyes, wide and fire ridden as she spins around, muttering the vague insult of _'Asshole'_ before slamming the door behind herself.

He slowly walks to where his glass is resting, picking it up only to throw it heavily onto the floor.

He watches, as the second glass of the week sprays clear light ridden fragments across his perfectly polished floor.

* * *

 _Wait until the train tracks dry_  
 _See you through the powder smoke sky right in front of me_  
 _See your light, I wanna take it all, I wanna take it all_  
 _Love that gives me life_  
 _Come on and fortify my love_  
 _Come on and fortify my love_  
 _Throw it all in flame, I want you calling my name_  
 _Tonight I'm gonna make you feel it all, my love._

\- 'Fortify' by Kate Miller

* * *

Rachel Zane has finally stopped crying.

But now, the eyes of Harvey Specter burn in her mind.

She feels spurned.

She feels unwanted.

The man that she loves, that loved her, would have rather taken his Boss, and sought comfort in a colleague rather than have her by his side in his most vulnerable moment.

It bruises. The idea of it tears at her like a poker in an open wound.

She's too scared to go home. To see their happy home for what it was.

She decides there and then that maybe...maybe she should move out for a while.

Just to...test it. To give herself space away from it all.

She wonders, about the wedding. If she'd have gone through with it should he have been willing.

She reasons that she would. Because she loves him, and love is like that.

She drowns out her Father's comments that niggle at her in the background, and looks at her Mother in a way that tells her not to push and to stop feeling like it's all about her.

She's sure after about a half hour of being at the family home.

This is _also_ not where she should be.

She wonders if her life is about to change considerably.

Mike looks guilty to the entire world.

And the fight, she knows, is not over yet.

* * *

Mike Ross is concentrating. He's concentrating because he has to. He's been processed, a provoking experience involving the usual amount of emotional disarmament. He decides to focus on Grammy after that. To remember her words. He can't cry over her death. She's gone in person, but her lessons are still potent in his mind, and her teachings are the only thing in his life that have helped to anchor him.

He can't think of home right now. Of his fiancée or even of his friends. _His Colleagues. Of Harvey._ Those ideas are still tender, like a fresh wound, and he can't afford to be influenced like that right now. He needs a level head. He can't be too cocky, but he also can't be bait. He needs to have his eye on the ball. To remember everything, but only use it in desperate times.

If people work out what he can do he'll be used like currency in this environment. A little white back boy who remembers every single thing he sees and reads. His head would most likely be between a rock and a hard place in every sense of the meaning.

 _He'd come all the way to the town of Mount Hope, Otisville._

 _Irony clearly wasn't lost on him, by any account._

His eyes flick to a guy whose presence lingers just over his shoulder as he waits in the steadily building queue. He is careful not to pay too much attention to the guy, whom he remembers as having a tattoo of red lipstick on his neck. He remembers because it seemed like a questionable choice of tattoo for a guy like him, toned and fluid seeming with every movement.

When he feels an effort laden breath on the back of his neck he resists the urge to straighten in reaction.

 ** _Don't turn around, and don't react. Don't retreat and don't get your back up._**

Neutral. Dazed. Occupied.

From now on he is like a bathroom.

 _If it's occupied,_

 _Then most people won't dare go in there…_

* * *

Donna had asked Mitchell to go home.

Now she regrets the impulse, as she hugs her sweater to her person.

She shakes her face against the feeling of her swollen lips and a still uneasy heartbeat, as her hand fishes out her phone from her back pocket.

She frowns, willing a cab to pass her, despite the nature of the hour.

"Hey….sorry I…." She says into the receiver. "I...he's fine. I just...I thought I could...come over? You know...finish where we left off?" She offers.

Fifteen minutes later she's knocking on the door of another man's apartment.

The idea of her being a hooker flits through her mind. When Mitchell's ruffled hair and steady smile encourage her over the threshold she sighs finally.

He welcomes her into his apartment, his arms drawing around her as his lips slide over hers.

He kisses her.

But now all she can see is Harvey.

* * *

 _ **Post Chapter Note:**_ _\- Just as a note, purely because of the nature of these two fics, and mostly because the writers will write something on the show, I'm not going to feature a lot of Mike's experience of jail in this one, more of the outside world. I will develop Harvey and Mike's perspectives of the situations more in 'The New World Order' but will filter Mike in occasionally in this one, in respect of his colleagues' journey._


End file.
